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Winter weather

Midwest braces for punishingly cold air

Arctic blast can freeze skin in minutes; temperatures to be lowest in decades

Basketball fans cross the street to the United Center in Chicago, where the temperature could fall to 20 below this weekend. The city’s schools will be open on Monday but officials are advising parents to use discretion in sending children to classes.

Many parts of the Midwest braced for a blast of arctic air this weekend that could bring some of
the lowest temperatures in two decades before advancing to the Northeast, where residents are still
digging out from a deadly snowstorm.

Starting today, the deep freeze will be felt in the northern plains, including North and South
Dakota, and through the Great Lakes region and Ohio Valley, according to the National Weather
Service.

It will be some of the coldest weather to grip the region in two decades, with blizzard
conditions expected in the central Plains and Great Lakes regions, forecasters said.

“The last really big arctic outbreak was 1994,” said Bob Oravec, a forecaster with the National
Weather Service. “Outbreaks like this don’t occur every day. They aren’t unheard of, but they are
unusual.“

This push of arctic air could bring record low temperatures in areas from Montana to Michigan,
and move to the Northeast where it will arrive by early Tuesday, forecasters said.

Chicago could be about minus-20, he said. Pittsburgh could see temperatures about 11 below zero
by early Tuesday.

“Incredibly, it may feel as cold as negative 50 to negative 60 on Sunday night over sections of
the north-central states,” including Minnesota and Wisconsin, the National Weather Service.

In those conditions, frostbite can set in on exposed skin within five minutes, forecasters
warned.

Preparing for the dangerous weather, officials in several states asked residents to use extra
precautions when outdoors.

Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton has ordered all public schools in the state closed on Monday to
protect children.

Chicago schools will be open on Monday despite the cold but officials, in a statement, advised
parents to “use their own discretion in deciding whether to send their child to school.”

In Pittsburgh, the transition team for Mayor-elect Bill Peduto said his inauguration ceremony on
Monday would be moved from the steps of the local government building to an indoor venue because of
the weather.

Officials in Kentucky, which could see up to 8 inches of snow and freezing temperatures, were
warning people to avoid road travel and stay indoors.

“If you don’t need to be out, stay in, stay home,” said Buddy Rogers, spokesman for Kentucky
Emergency Management. “Take the pets inside and take the livestock inside the barns and make sure
your elderly neighbors and friends are looked after.”

Schools will remain closed in Nashville, Tenn., until Wednesday, a day after winter break was
supposed to end, local officials said.

The storm comes on the heels of a massive winter weather system that slammed the Midwest and
Northeast just after New Year’s Day, causing several deaths, grounding thousands of flights and
forcing schools and government offices to close.

A total of 1,266 flights were canceled across the United States and 6,036 flights delayed
yesterday, with Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport and Newark (N.J.) Liberty International
Airport among the most affected, according to tracking firm FlightAware.com.

Molly Cox, who was in New York City for New Year’s Eve, said she missed her Friday night flight
home to Denver because LaGuardia Airport was “a disaster.”

“I was told I wouldn’t be able to get a flight out until Sunday,” she said. “With all the
cancellations, all of the airlines seem to be having this kind of chaos.”

Boston was especially hard-hit by the first major storm of 2014, logging about 18 inches of snow
on Friday, while some towns north of New England’s largest city saw close to 2 feet of
accumulation.

But life has begun to return to normal in Boston. The city lifted its snow emergency at 5 p.m.
on Friday.

New York City got about 7 inches and was slammed with overnight air temperatures hovering under
the freezing mark. Washington received more than 2 inches of snow in the storm, Philadelphia
roughly 5 inches and Hartford, Conn., 7 inches

The weather was a factor in several deaths and hundreds of reported road accidents. A
22-year-old man in Connecticut died on Friday when his car slammed into a Department of
Transportation truck, state police said. In Ohio, authorities said at least two people were killed
on Thursday in weather-related crashes.

In Green Bay, Wis., the temperature plummeted to minus-18 on Friday, breaking a record for the
date set in 1979, according to the National Weather Service.

With the new frigid air moving in, today’s National Football League wild-card playoff game
between the Green Bay Packers and the San Francisco 49ers at Green Bay’s Lambeau Field was expected
to rank among the coldest games on record, local officials said.